cOur recent studies demonstrated that apolipoprotein E mediates cell attachment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) through interactions with the cell surface heparan sulfate (HS). HS is known to covalently attach to core proteins to form heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) on the cell surface. The HSPG core proteins include the membrane-spanning syndecans (SDCs), the lycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked glypicans (GPCs), the basement membrane proteoglycan perlecan (HSPG2), and agrin. In the present study, we have profiled each of the HSPG core proteins in HCV attachment. Substantial evidence derived from our studies demonstrates that SDC1 is the major receptor protein for HCV attachment. The knockdown of SDC1 expression by small interfering RNA (siRNA)-induced gene silence resulted in a significant reduction of HCV attachment to Huh-7.5 cells and stem cell-differentiated human hepatocytes. The silence of SDC2 expression also caused a modest decrease of HCV attachment. In contrast, the siRNA-mediated knockdown of other SDCs, GPCs, HSPG2, and agrin had no effect on HCV attachment. More importantly, ectopic expression of SDC1 was able to completely restore HCV attachment to Huh-7.5 cells in which the endogenous SDC1 expression was silenced by specific siRNAs. Interestingly, mouse SDC1 is also fully functional in mediating HCV attachment when expressed in the SDC1-deficient cells, consistent with recent reports that mouse hepatocytes are also susceptible to HCV infection when expressing other key HCV receptors. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that SDC1 serves as the major receptor protein for HCV attachment to cells, providing another potential target for discovery and development of antiviral drugs against HCV. H epatitis C virus (HCV) is a common cause of chronic liver diseases such as hepatitis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. It is an enveloped RNA virus containing a single positive-sense RNA genome that encodes a polyprotein precursor of 3,000 amino acids (1). Upon translation, the viral polyprotein was cleaved by cellular peptidases, viral NS2/NS3 metalloprotease, and NS3/4A serine protease to produce mature HCV structural (C, E1, and E2) and nonstructural (NS) proteins (p7, NS2, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B) (2, 3). The untranslated nucleotide sequences flanked at both the 5= and 3= ends of the HCV RNA genome are highly conserved and form complex secondary and tertiary structures serving as cis-acting RNA elements important for initiation of viral protein translation and/or viral RNA replication. Based on the common features of viral RNA genome organization, HCV is classified in the Hepacivirus genus of the Flaviviridae family (4, 5).HCV enters cells via receptor-mediated endocytosis (6). A number of cell surface proteins were shown to interact with the viral envelope glycoproteins E1 and E2 (7). Human CD81 was identified as the first HCV receptor/coreceptor (8). Subsequently, many other cell surface proteins were found to be important for HCV cell entry (9), including the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDL...